It's hard to look at Florida's dominant close to the 2008 season and say the Gators made any mistakes, but apparently they did.
They won by too much.
Everyone got used to gaudy point totals, so much so that last weekend's extremely dominant performance in Baton Rouge has been turned into an indictment of UF's offense.
The receivers are garbage. The running game is being misused. The playcalling isn't aggressive enough. Tim Tebow should have stayed on the bench.
These are all complaints I've heard since Florida's 13-3 win, and I can see where the sentiment comes from. I'd change some things if I were running the show, too (Moody!), and it's always good to look for improvement, but let's take a closer look at what happened Saturday.
Florida outgained then-No. 4 LSU 327-162, holding the Tigers to 12 first downs and just one of nine third-down conversion attempts. They forced four punts, made five sacks and dominated time of possession by 13 full minutes.
Let's compare that to Florida's 51-21 spanking of LSU in The Swamp last year.
Then, UF outgained the Tigers by 11 fewer yards, gave up seven more first downs while picking up the same number (22), allowed four of 11 third-down tries and led time of possession by 4:40.
Everyone agreed it was a shellacking, but this year's meeting went better.
Beatdown 2K9 happened inside Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night, a situation where LSU had won 32 straight.
The Gators imposed their will. Take a look at their drives: 82 yards (field goal), 45 yards (turnover on downs), 80 yards (touchdown), negative-1 yard (kneel before halftime), 76 yards (missed FG), 15 yards (punt), 44 yards (field goal), 3 yards (interception), 12 yards (running out the clock).
There are three bad drives in there, and the interception could have been a touchdown, but at any rate, the game was never really in jeopardy after the Gators stopped running back Charles Scott on third and goal from the 2.
Florida is just as dominant as last year, maybe moreso. It's just being done in a different way now.
This is a defensive team. The offense still has explosive capabilities, and I expect some blowouts, but this team isn't equipped for the type of show it put on last year.
The loss of Percy Harvin was and is a big deal, and I credit Urban Meyer for tightening up and using his team's strengths rather than risk sure wins by playing a different style to impress pollsters.
A year and a week ago, everyone was tripping over themselves to criticize the Gators' waste of talent. Subsequent events led to a massive change of heart, and I can see the same thing happening this year.
From a look at the stats, they don't even have as much room for a dramatic turnaround as they did last year.
Compare their stats now to after five games last year, and they're getting 106 more rushing yards and three more points per game with just 10 fewer passing yards per game.
They rank best in the nation in four defensive categories and third in passing efficiency. The only major steps backward are in turnover margin and punt returns, but the most important difference is they haven't lost.
And based on the way they overcame the toughest challenge of the season last week, I can't see them losing for quite a while.
